


Brilliance

by thealmostviki



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Music, I lived in the music major dorm at my uni so, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other, They all attend a conservatory, a lot of this is just what I witnessed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27501925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealmostviki/pseuds/thealmostviki
Summary: Tsukishima Kei is a violinist. He didn't exactly choose it, but he didn't exactly not choose it, and it's a bit too late to have regrets now, on the first day of his four-year music performance degree. He has no choice but to grin and bear it, make his family and friends proud.Then Kuroo shows up with his annotated sheet music and wily grin and Tsukishima thinks maybe going to music school wasn't a mistake after all.Or: Tsukishima's character arc but with classical music instead of volleyball
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Brilliance

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this ummmm three years ago? And never posted it. I have most of it written, but this is the most polished part so I'm posting it as a bit of a shorter part? Think of it as an introduction.  
> I'm writing this because Tsukishima's character arc actually inspired me to quit playing music because I realized that the joy of playing actually wasn't enough for me the way it was for him. So naturally, I had to turn his character arc into a classical music AU because he is a more motivated person than me and I need to vent lmao.  
> I should update this once a week but I'm also recovering from hospitalization so we'll see!

Tsukishima Kei is a violinist.

He didn't exactly choose it, but he didn't exactly not choose it either. It was simply the next predictable event in a series of circumstances beyond his control. His mother was a flutist in high school, but never went anywhere serious with it. "Bygones," she always says when he asks about it, and that's all there is to say of the matter. When his older brother took up cello, taking after his mother as everyone had known he would, people said he had potential. Akiteru was good, great, actually. Tsukishima watched him practice when he was younger, watched his hand press the strings in a confident rhythm, his hand tensed ever so lightly on the frog of the bow. 

"Wanna try?" Akiteru asked him, holding out his bow to him. He guided Kei's hand over the strings helping him play a shaky but clean G note. Kei felt the sound reverberate in his chest, sending shivers down his spine. 

"Too big," he said, handing the instrument and bow back to his brother. 

"There are smaller instruments," Akiteru prompted. Kei shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. 

"What kinds?"

A week later, he was standing in a music shop being measured for a beginner's violin. The walls were lined with instruments off all different colors and sizes, from electric violas to sleek black cellos to towering basses lined against the far wall, their strings thick enough to form a wire fence. The air smelled like polish and wax, a smell he would later identify as rosin, especially after the thousand times he'd lose or break or leave a dusty sheen of it all over his clothes, the bane of his existence. 

"We'll start him at half size," said the shopkeeper, an older man with callused hands and piercing eyes. "The way he looks, he'll be big enough for a full size soon enough."

He handed Kei a violin- his violin- polished to a coppery sheen, and demonstrated how to balance it just above his collarbone, how to place his fingers on the bow. 

"And now just press down and extend your elbow out," he said. Kei did, and a scratchy, tortured sound emitted from the violin. It made Kei's ears want to cry.

The shopkeeper smiled wryly. "Yeah. That'll do."

And from that moment on, Tsukishima Kei was a violinist.

It was a surprise to himself most of all when he realized he was good at it. Not just good, but rather brilliant. It starts with school music education and continues to private lessons and small recitals, playing short pieces that gradually get longer and more complex, with tempo markings he has to scramble to recognize. When the music became complex enough he needed to pull out a theory textbook, he started to wonder if it was worth the effort. 

Akiteru joins a high school with a great orchestra, and though he practices for hours a day, he never makes first chair. Kei can never erase the sight of his brother coming home late from quartet practice, clutching his sheet music so tightly it's threatening to tear in half. He remembers every note of his brother's music, from the endless repetitions, the scarred tips of his fingers that refuse to heal into calluses, the commendations that never find their way onto his wall. 

Akiteru loved his instrument with everything he had, but that wasn't enough. Kei has never really loved his, and although he takes pride in his technical near-perfection, he doesn't pretend to have the slightest idea how to relate when the other kids around him start chattering about conservatories and national ensembles and composers whose names Kei has never bothered to learn to pronounce. Even as he joins a high school with a pretty good orchestra he resigns himself to never being principal. He's never been one to put 100% into anything when he can get by with even a fraction less. So he isn't in the back row, but he isn't in the front row either, which is exactly where he wants to be. He's good, maybe even great, but he's not amazing. He's certainly not a prodigy. When his orchestra teacher suggests he apply a conservatory in Tokyo, he initially thinks he's joking.

"You have skill, Tsukishima, and a cool head. You think through your pieces." His teacher sighs and puts his hands up. "Just think about it. I know music isn't for everyone but...I think there's something there for you."

Maybe he's delusional, or just bored on a Sunday with too much to do, but he fills out the application and sends in a video of him playing.

Against all odds, they want him to audition in person.

He really hadn't planned on getting this far, to the extent that he hadn't even told his parents. He probably still wouldn't have told them if he didn't need their permission to take the train to Tokyo at six am on a school day. He tries to bring it up casually at dinner but of course that isn't going to fly in his house, not with his overly-invested parents and brother.

"You applied to a conservatory?" his mother says, less angry than confused. "You've never seemed that invested in music before."

Kei mumbled something about his orchestra teacher suggesting it and took a long drink of water, hoping the tension at the table breaks without him having to do anything about it. It's not as if he had any other ideas for what to do as a career. His father worked in software, his mother was a teacher, and his brother was still finishing his degree for something science-related. Kei hadn't really considered his options that seriously prior to his third year of high school, and nothing really suck out to him any more than music did. 

"I'm good at it," he defended, unsure why he felt he had to prove his conviction. "I play well. After all these years it'd be a waste not to continue."

"I never said you couldn't go, Kei," his mother said, looking at him with a half-smile. "If that's what you really want, of course you can go."

Kei never liked that answer. He didn't know what he really wanted. Music was easy; it was a path of least resistance. It was the closest he'd ever come to wanting anything. 

So in late November he took the two-hour train ride to Tokyo with his violin and music, antsy in a way he normally wasn't. He's playing Autumn Ghosts, a piece he'd had in his binder for years, working through it like he'd had all the time in the world. It's so familiar to him he could probably copy it down note for note if asked. He walks up to the doors of the conservatory, which are large and glass with a handle as thick as the neck of his violin, and goes inside. 

The air is still in the lobby, which isn't what he was expecting, considering he's at a music school. But there are no sounds of instruments, or voices, or feet running through the halls. Instead, it's quiet, only the hushed rumble of the voices of the other students come to audition. Maybe they cleared out this building for auditions, he thinks, but he knows somehow that there's more to it than that. Maybe this is how air feels when it goes too long without noise. It's the sound of emptiness in a room that's normally empty. He doesn't like it. It doesn't feel complete.

He signs in and waits for them to call him, trying to calm his nerves. If you aren't nervous then you didn't want it enough, the principal violist of his high school always said. At the time he'd found it annoying, but now he kind of understands. Despite everything he's said to his brother and his friends, he does care about this audition. He wants it to go well. The idea of music school is big and daunting but this performance is immediate and present and the advisors on the other side of that door are going to be awestruck if it's the last thing he does. So what if he's not as gifted as some of the other students? So what if he doesn't eat, sleep and breathe rosin? He's been playing for eleven years. He's not letting that go to ruin because of something as simple as apathy.

He walks into the audition room with more purpose than he's felt in the past two years combined. He bows to the judges, sets up his music, and waits for the nod that says he may begin.

He plays.

It's a feeling that he's felt before, but not often these days: the feeling of making music. He's nearly perfect except for a few incorrect attacks. His tone is good. His dynamics are good. It's a puzzle coming together, pieces interlocking to form music and he only sounds this good, feels this good once in a blue moon, when all the stars align and playing doesn't feel like a habit or a chore or a hobby, but something he really, truly, loves. This is why he's been playing for over a decade. This is why he applied to the conservatory.

The pieces finishes, and the last note fades into silence. The feeling of elation fades as soon as he lowers his bow. He takes a breath- he hadn't realized how hard his heart was beating until the piece finished. He bows again and is dismissed, and he rides the train home just in time to miss dinner with his family. By the time he gets to his home station he's already forgotten what it was like to play without thinking of anything at all.

His acceptance letter comes three weeks later. His mother cries, and Akiteru isn't far from it. Kei tells them to stop, that it's not a big deal, but it is a big deal and he knows it. He's gotten into the conservatory. He'll be enrolling there next school year. He's going to be a professional violinist. Even as he just thinks it, a hole opens up in his stomach, a deep hunger even though he's just eaten, a hole that food won't fill.

He ignores it.

He's in the habit of ignoring a lot of things about himself.

It's raining his first day at the conservatory, or, more significantly, the first time he sees Akaashi. His day at this point hasn't exactly been a wreck, but it wasn't as nice as he'd have liked it to be. He'd been late out of bed that morning and nearly missed his train, then gotten lost on campus twice. Akiteru had such lofty dreams of Kei's time at the conservatory that Kei's now glad he never shared, or else today would have been incredibly disappointing. 

He'd moved his stuff into his dorm a few days prior, but there was some kind of error in his student information that needs correction, so he grabs his violin and heads toward Student Services, figuring he can head to his first class right after. 

The man at the counter doesn't stop him in his tracks, but he does take an involuntary breath.

He's gorgeous, for starters, with gently curling dark hair and a long body. Even from a distance Kei can tell he's tall. He looks up when Tsukishima enters the building, and his eyes widen almost imperceptibly. They look at each other for a solid minute before Tsukishima breaks eye contact, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"I received a message that there was something missing in my registration work?" he said.

The man blinked, and his face reset back to its neutral expression. "Name and ID?"

Kei walked towards the desk and pulled his ID out of his wallet, holding it up for the man at the desk to see. "Tsukishima Kei."

The receptionist typed his name into the computer, and assumedly pulled up a list of forms and documents he'd submitted to the school. He talked about some medical release Kei had forgotten to sign, and in a matter of moments it was printed, rectified, and sorted. 

"You're good now," the receptionist said. "This happens to people all the time." 

"Thank you," Kei said, and again, maybe their eye contact was a second too long before he turned on his heel and sped out of the building. When he was a far enough distance away to feel safe he let out a long sigh. Not even one day on campus and he'd already embarrassed himself. Kei hefted his violin case and hoofed it to the orchestra hall, forcing himself to put the gorgeous receptionist out of his mind. 

He might've succeeded if he hadn't gotten roped into going to Fall Festival with his roommate and his trumpet major best friend. 

Kei and Kageyama aren't exactly friends. They didn't speak to each other the whole first week of term, until they were put into the same quartet and therefore forced to navigate interactions. Kageyama is a violist who plays like his instrument is a part of his body. He's what the normies call a "prodigy". That's fine with Kei; he never strived to be a prodigy. What isn't fine with Tsukishima is Kageyama's friend Hinata, who plays four instruments, all of which are almost as loud as his personality. Being in the same room as them gives Kei a headache, partly because of their constant arguments, and partly because of the way he just always is. Over time he takes to spending time anywhere that isn't his dorm room for fear of catching sight of the two of them having another loud and trivial argument. But it's him who forgets his history book in the dorm, and thus it's his fault when Hinata manages to rope him into going with him and Kageyama to the September Festival, the first series of performances of the school year. It's the second week of September, free for anyone to sign on, and it culminates in a concert on Sunday night in the auditorium. Freshmen virtually never perform, since it's so close to the start of the school year, but Hinata says they should go. Kageyama stands behind him, looking pained, and because Tsukishima is not quite a good roommate, he agrees to come, not expecting much. 

Then, Kei sees him. The gorgeous administration worker- apparently named Akaashi Keiji according to the announcer who introduces him. He's dancing, a duet with someone else, a girl with sleek black hair and violet lips. Their bodies are liquid, his body is liquid, shining under the lights as if boneless, every single movement flowing and deliberate. He's seen dancing before, but never like this. Kei thinks he might forget how to breathe.

When the performance is over, Kei gives applause with everyone else, still slightly awestruck. Hinata looks over at him and grins wide when he sees Kei's expression. 

"I told you it would be great," he whispers as the next act walks onto the stage. Kei doesn't comment. Everyone was good. There's nothing special about Akaashi other than that he was a great dancer.

The second-to-last act is a name Kei actually recognizes: Bokuto Koutarou, a piano prodigy from Tokyo. He's been playing in concert halls since he was fifteen. He looks a little odd when he walks onstage, with his tie untied and silver hair gelled into spikes, but all that fades when he sits down neatly at the piano and plays the first notes. Even from the back of the theater Kei can feel intensity radiating off him as the music swells, almost a force of its own washing over the building. Kei is almost afraid to breathe and disturb the air around him where the sound swells like a storm surge. He's heard piano before, but never like this. 

The song ends and Bokuto is still for a minute before standing up with a wide grin and taking an exaggerated bow. Kei blinks once in the stillness, then joins in with the applause. Hinata's eyes are wide. Even Kageyama looks a little awestruck. All three of them look at each other and come to the simultaneous understanding that there's no playing around at this school. This is the real deal. They're here to play music. Hinata and Kageyama have fire in their eyes. Kei hopes that his own don't show the worry creeping up on him. The hole in his stomach throbs.

When the night is over and everyone takes their final bows, he sees them again, standing next to each other, Akaashi smiling with his dance partner's arm around him, Bokuto's grin so wide it splits his face in half. Kei can't take his eyes away from them. They almost seem to attract his attention like magnets. He can still see them in his minds eye, ghosts of their movement and music playing behind his eyes. But they have classes the next day, so Kageyama drags him and Hinata out and lets them get mixed into the traffic exiting the theater. 

"See? I told you it would be great," Hinata says, stars in his eyes. "I'm gonna be that good someday."

Tsukishima doesn't comment. Everyone was good, he tells himself. There was nothing special about those two. They were unusually good, but this is a conservatory. Someday he would be expected to sound extraordinary on his instrument as well. There was no use venerating someone who was just another student like him, just another college kid like they were. 

It isn't until he gets home and empties his pockets that he realizes his ID is missing. Mu must have lost his it at some point the festival, which means he has to go to the office to get another one. Which means seeing the dancer again. Goddamn it.

Kei slinks into the office Monday afternoon, hoping Akaashi won't be there, but because Kei was a heathen in a past life, he's sitting there just like he was before. He doesn't look surprised to see Kei again; surely many people must come to Student Services multiple times. 

"I need a new ID," he says. Akaashi doesn't even blink this time, just turns to his computer to start opening programs or however else IDs are printed at this place. Kei wants to speak, but he doesn't know what to say. Good job at the Festival? I liked your performance? I forgot how to breathe the entire duration of your dance how do you move like that?

Before Tsukishima can decide on a comment, the door opens and closes behind him and a dark-haired guy slinks up to the counter beside him. His hair is unkempt, and his body is long and built, like a former athlete's. He crosses his arms on the counter and flashes a million-watt smile at Akaashi. 

"Kou said to tell you he found his sheet music and he'll be back late." His voice is smooth like honey, the same way drama students sound when they're talking up their most recent show. Kei instantly dislikes him.

Akaashi's eyebrow dips. "I'm sure he meant for you to text me, not bother me at work."

"Come on, you love when I visit. And there's rarely anyone here anyway."

"Because they're busy, Kuroo. Don't you have an assignment due in a few days?" 

Kuroo's face twists, but then he catches sight of Kei and the grin is back on his face. "And who is the lovely Akaashi serving today?" he asks, his tone sickeningly sweet. Kei scowls. Already he likes Kuroo less and less.

"Tsukishima Kei," he says, trying to sound as bored as possible. 

Kuroo's eyes widen just slightly before his face sets to a smirk. "Tsukishima Kei, eh? Freshman violinist, right?"

"How did you-"

"I know people." Kuroo looked between Tsukishima and Akaashi for a few second before beginning to back away. "I better go back to work. See you later, 'Kaashi." He fixes Tsukishima with golden eyes. "See you around, Glasses." With that he leaves in a whirlwind, the ghost of his smile still lingering in the air.

Akaashi looks pained. He takes Kei's ten dollars and hands him his ID. "I'm sorry about him," he says. "He's a little meddlesome." 

Meddlesome? Kei wonders, but doesn't comment. He thanks Akaashi for his ID and speedwalks back to his dorm for his violin. If he doesn't hurry, he'll be late for orchestra practice. 

That night Yamaguchi calls him, and he does a very good job of explaining that how much of a hassle the first month of school has been.

"Oh wow, a hot boy around every corner, sounds like torture," Yamaguchi says, sounding far too amused for. Kei's liking. 

"Shut up," he snaps without heat. "They're not that hot."

"You spent two whole minutes talking about Akaashi's dancing."

"He's a good dancer," Kei mumbled, and Yamaguchi just laughed and laughed until Kei bit out an excuse to hang up on him.

He expects that to be the end of it, but of course, he's wrong. Not even three days have passed when Kuroo seeks him out. Kei is laboring over a placement piece for his ensemble, losing all sense of time as he replays the same eight measures over and over again. Kuroo knocks on the door of his practice room, holding a large notebook with papers spilling out of it and a cup of coffee despite it being the middle of the day on a Thursday. Kei startles so bad he almost throws his violin against the wall. Kuroo just laughs and lets himself in, and normally if someone interrupts him when he's practicing Kei kicks them out, but with Kuroo, he doesn't get the chance. Now that he's face to face with Kuroo he has to notice that Kuroo is also unfairly hot. This is getting out of hand. Yamaguchi's words stuck out in his mind and he sets his jaw.

"What do you want?" he asks, not caring how rude his voice sounds.

"So hostile," Kuroo chides, that smirk still glued on his face. "I was just going to ask you to play something for me." 

Kei bristles. "Why should I?"

"I just like hearing music," he says, even though Kei doesn't feel like that's a valid explanation in any way. Seeing his doubtful expression, Kuroo leans forward, eyes flashing. "If you're shy about your playing, I'll just go ask an upperclassman who's better at performing."

Kei knows he's being baited, but he falls for it anyway. He huffs, walks over to his music binder, and finds one of his favorite pieces, the one he'd played for his audition. He pulls his violin to his chin, takes a breath, and plays. The piece is like a familiar memory, as easy as walking, as breathing. He knows every note, ever accidental, every descrescendo and ritardando. It's beautiful and he knows it. He lets himself feel the music swell over him, filling the small practice room and reverberating across the walls. 

When the music is done, he puts his violin down and turns to Kuroo, who's staring at him with an expression of complete and utter shock.

"Satisfied, Kuroo-san?" Tsukki asks mockingly. Kuroo lets out a shaky breath and puts his signature smile back on his face, but Tsukki can tell he's impressed and allows himself a bit of pride.

"A bit green," he critiques. "Definitely a freshman sound. But still...would you be willing to do me a favor?" Kuroo asks. Tsukki looks at his music, the last notes still ringing in his ears. 

"What kind of favor?"

And that's how Tsukishima ends up as the person playing Kuroo's December composition. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up at my tumblr @astralbone or my twitter @kudzeee !


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